Late thoughts

I'm up rather late tonight.  Josh has been working on a project and I've been helping.  We moved the rocking chair into our bedroom so I've been rocking and reading facebook, or shoving electrical wiring into a small hole in the wall for the last few hours.  Sadly, I may not be much help to Josh in this area.

All the babies are sleeping.  It's quiet and peaceful, which is a nice change from the almost constant bickering of small children, the loud desire to be held, intermittent work noises, and the steady beat of the washing machine.

They tell mothers to sleep when their children sleep.  To go to bed early.  I can't help but stay up late.  Almost every night I find myself here, in the dark, reading a book or messing around, because this is the time when I can be just me.  I can let my guard down and stop listening for the start of a fight, or the cry of a child or the buzz of a dryer.  I can release all the responsibility for a bit.  I can go to the bathroom alone.

Inevitably, though, I end up thinking about my babies, and I sneak in to check on them.  Are they warm enough?  Are they okay?  I end up reading about nursing, or how to teach your child to read or clean or how to dress them, feed them, care for them.  I read blogs by other women who are trying to remind me of how I am not alone.  How mothering may be hard, but it goes by so quickly.

My children are never far from me.